Tory sewage scandal sullies Crawley with a new sewage dumping event taking place three times a month

Last year, the Conservatives allowed over 16 days’ worth of raw sewage to be dumped into Crawley’s open spaces, the Labour Party has revealed.

Labour analysis of Environment Agency data shows that in 2022, raw sewage was discharge into Crawley’s waterways for 395 hours, the equivalent of there being a continuous flow of sewage taking place for a staggering 5% of the year.

Labour’s research also points to 34 sewage dumping events having taken place locally last year. This equates to roughly three new sewage spills every month, a damning indictment of the Tories allowing raw sewage to polluting the places in which people live, work and holiday.

The data comes after Labour analysis revealed that nationally since 2016, a new sewage dumping event has taken place an average of every two-and-a-half minutes, with rivers, lakes, seas, and beaches having faced a staggering 1,276 years’ worth of raw sewage over just a seven-year period.

The news will inevitably once again spark serious concern at the environmental, health and economic impact that sewage dumping is having on communities across the country.

Indeed, a Parliamentary Question tabled by Shadow Environment Secretary Jim McMahon, revealed that the Conservative Government has failed to conduct any economic assessments of the impact of sewage pollution on tourism trade and businesses.
At the end of last year, the Labour Party revealed that sewage discharges more than doubled from 14.7 per overflow in 2016 to 35.4 in 2019, coinciding with current Environment Secretary Therese Coffey’s decision to cut funding for environmental protection, during her tenure as Water Minister.

These new revelations on sewage dumping come as Coffey continues to face significant pressure after a troubled start to her new role, having broken the Government’s own statutory deadline for publishing water quality targets; announced a 36-year delay to cleaning-up waterways; told Parliament that meeting polluting water bosses wasn’t her priority and been heavily criticised for announcing a storm overflow reduction plan containing no reduction measures.

During the passage of the Environment Bill, Henry Smith alongside other Conservative MPs voted to allow water firms to continue sewage dumping, having blocked a Labour-backed amendment that would have progressively eliminated sewage dumping.

Last September, during Labour Party Conference, Shadow Environment Secretary Jim McMahon announced that a future Labour Government would implement measures that would force water companies to clean up their act and progressively end sewage dumping and the culture of water companies treating our natural environment as an open sewer.